KREDI pushes for new members

The Kirksville Regional Economic Development, Inc. is presenting a fresh face with a new logo and website as it prepares to make a push in the community for new members.

The KREDI group is planning a membership blitz, reaching out to hundreds of potential members with personal phone calls or face-to-face meetings. And it will be doing so with a new logo and new website, both designed with site selectors and businesses in mind.

“It’s plain, it’s simple but it gets the point across,” said KREDI member Burt Beard of the new logo.

The image was designed by several senior Truman State students as part of the Fine Arts Publication Club and was unanimously accepted by the KREDI board at its Tuesday meeting.

Each of the about 20 board members at the meeting were instructed to pick up contact information for community businesses and leaders with the hope to recruit them for membership as both an effort to boost the group’s connections and reach but also secure its financial funding in the form of member dues.

“It takes people that believe in KREDI to make that phone call to others,” said KREDI member Mark Whitney. “The more members, the more chances of leads and the monetary aspect, of course.”

The group’s membership drive is expected to last through its next meeting in December.

“There are a lot of good folks on the list that I think would join, they just need to be asked,” Whitney said. “And there’s a contribution level for everybody from $100 to $5,000.”

KREDI’s new logo will also go hand in hand with its new website, geared specifically for introducing Kirksville to businesses looking to grow or relocate.

“It is live and we’re trying to tweak it now,” said KREDI Director of Economic Development Carolyn Chrisman. “We will look over it as a committee and will continue to update it.”

Chrisman also updated the board on five contacts she had made in the past month, listing off the various reasons the Kirksville community did not qualify for consideration, including lack of barge or rail access and lack of available facilities or space.

“We’ll never have Union Pacific rail or barge access but we need to do whatever we can,“ Chrisman said.

The group will be taking an inventory of the available commercial properties in Kirksville, with the intent to gather a list to simplify the search process for site selectors.

“Please let me know what’s available so I can follow up,” Chrisman said.

Chrisman also reported that the Kirksville area reported an unemployment rate of 5.1 percent in September, a decline from 6.5 percent in August.